Strong brand building, means strong business building
But not everything of worth in business can be measured.
We are big fans, and regular readers, of Vestact's daily mailer.
In this morning's snippet, the team shared a link to a great post on the Collabpost Substack; that references an old letter written by Warren Buffett to the then President of See's Candy, that illustrates just how much 'the Oracle of Omaha' values strong brands.
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The Hidden Value Not Found on a Balance Sheet
Buffett often talks about moats; the durable competitive advantages that protect a company over decades. In See’s Candy, he found one that was remarkably intangible: customer love.
It’s easy to think of Buffett as the world’s most disciplined value investor. But letters like this reveal something deeper. He has always been a brand investor, someone who recognizes that the strongest companies don’t just sell products; they sell belief. They create environments and stories that compound over time.
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What's clear from the post, is that as much as finance and investing is all about numbers and metrics and things that can be methodically calculated, the most valuable element of a strong business also just so happens to be something that can never be accurately measured: the brand.
A brand functions like invisible infrastructure on which a successful business is built. Neglecting to tend to it is a recipe for poor performance.
Long-term brand building efforts largely went out of favour during the rise of digital and performance marketing, which financial teams preferred because the performance of marketing spend magically became measurable.
But not everything of worth in business can be measured and the result of this change has been proven to be rather disastrous for the longer-term prospects of many businesses.
The tide however appears to be shifting back towards a renewed focus on brand building (in partnership with continued performance marketing), which means that holding a long-term view of performance is once again en vogue.